Just another thing

Sometimes, I hate how yachting aphorisms seem larger and truer than life. Like 'Owning a boat is like standing in a cold shower tearing up hundred dollar bills', or 'BOAT stands for Bring Out Another Thousand'. The one that particularly sticks in my craw is: 'Cruising is boat maintenance in exotic locations'.  This is just so true I could cry.

Village house near Saban's place.

Pavlov's Prima M50 diesel engine is currently threatening to become my Waterloo. We decided last year to do some pre-emptive maintenance and replace the timing belt. This is due to be replaced every 2000 hours and we still had a long time to run, but I just wanted to be sure. A failure of the timing belt is catastrophic and something definitely to be avoided. We also noticed a diesel leak that seemed to be coming from the lift pump. Saban, our Turkish mechanic, thought we should replace that as well.

Saban at Milos Pompa, the service facility

 Since parts are so expensive in Turkey, we ordered a new timing belt, tensioner pulleys and a lift pump from Lancing Marine in the UK. To circumvent Turkish Customs difficulties, we sent them to Rhodes in Greece and they were picked up by a sailing friend of ours. This is the usual way to get spares into Turkey. The parts arrived just before we departed for Australia last year, so we put them aside until our return.

The Saniye in Mulga

Finding a reasonable mechanic in Turkey is never easy, but we were finally able to entice Saban down to Bozburun from his local haunt in Orhaniye. He took one look at our parts sent from England, and shook his head. The bearings were audibly problematic, and the belt was not a Volvo original as we had hoped. So these parts had to get sent back to the UK, and we ordered new parts at a much higher price from Izmir.

Saban being his comical self

Saban duly replaced our timing belt and lift pump and we thought we were right to go. Next morning, of course, there was a large pool of raw diesel in the engine sump. Problem obviously not solved. My mind started racing, as there is only one other component in the chain of fuel delivery that could be the problem, assuming all our pipes and hoses are okay. That's the primary fuel pressure pump, the highest tech piece of equipment on the boat.

The offending high pressure pump

As usual, my fears were well founded, and we managed to identify a seam on the high pressure pump that had a steady drip. We did have to disassemble half the boat to confirm this, but so it goes. These pumps are not child's play to service, and require dedicated service facilities and complicated test equipment. Our time was running out at the boatyard and in our rented apartment, and I could see the dollar sign wheels spinning in front of my eyes.

Pump mounted in the test bed, Saban looking on.

Saban however, came to the rescue and offered to drive us to Mulga, the capital of this region, to a specialised service centre. This was a round trip of over 200 km from Bozburun, and we were very pleased. The service centre was unlike any other I've seen in Turkey; it was spotless and extremely well organised. They also had several large test beds that could work the pump and computer test the various parameters.

The 'operating theatre'

The main mechanic worked on the pump for six straight hours. He was like a violinist, or more like a brain surgeon. He had a 'theatre nurse' who picked up his used tools and put them back in the right place, assisted with cleaning things and generally waited on him hand and foot. He had a deft touch, flipping minute springs and o-rings out with gay abandon, separating renewables from keepers like a short order vegetable cook peeling garlic, and generally just pulling down this incredibly complex device (with over 200 separate parts) like he could do it with his eyes closed. Mind you, Turks love to provide a good performance when there are appreciative on-lookers.

The Maestro enters the area ...

and rapidly reduces the pump to a pile of parts.

The operations were very detailed, involving replacing about a third of the parts, cleaning everything to surgical standards, and about 2 hours of exhaustive testing on the computerised test bed.

Starting the re-assembly

Pump almost complete, prior to testing.

I was pleasantly surprised at the cost of this virtuosic performance, the pump cost us TL600 (about AUD $300) for parts and labour. Not bad considering the 6 hours of labour, many spare parts and the use of expensive equipment. I'm sure the cost in Australia would be many times this price. We had a long drive home, then Saban and his son Usan laboured into the night to re-install the pump. We humped 20l bottles of water up to the boat so that we could test run the engine. Everything seems okay. Hurrah, maybe we pulled this one off. Time will tell, but.... its just another thing!